[SciPy-User] If you use GPL in our neighborhood then you break the chain, ...

[James E.H. Turner]

Hi Josef,

I feel compelled to comment on this, even as a somewhat peripheral member
of the SciPy community -- not because I disagree with your request, but
because it's basically spreading misinformation (which it seems has been
pointed out by one other person at most).

Everyone is allowed to copy and adjust GPL code. The GPL is designed
explicitly to ensure that you "benefit back from the changes,
improvements, adjustments and extensions" and does a better job of that
than BSD does, since it prohibits making proprietary derivatives. The
only reason the community can't use GPL code is that it chooses not to
make everything GPL. You can peruse the licensing details at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html or
http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.

Now I think BSD is a fine licence that has been overwhelmingly endorsed
by the scientific software community. I have no intention of discouraging
its use. It's nice and simple and I understand that some companies in our
community develop proprietary software for their customers while also
providing long-standing support for the SciPy stack. My only objection
is that to say "GPL breaks the sharing" is simply a FUD-like error of
fact and grossly unfair to those behind it.

Cheers,

James.


On 17/10/15 14:54, josef.pktd at gmail.com wrote:
> ... and something bad will happen      to us.
>
>
> Dear developer,
>
> One of the great features of development in our neighborhood is that almost all
> code is BSD licensed or has a license that is compatible with it. This allows us
> to freely use and copy (with attribution) each others code, which makes some
> packages a great source of inspiration or provides code snippets for reuse.
>
> I think this is also a reason why Python became so successful. Not only is the
> code readable but everybody is also legally allowed to copy the code and adjust
> it to individual special requirements.
>
> GPL breaks the mutual sharing, because we cannot benefit back from the changes,
> improvements, adjustments and extensions.
>
> If you really want or need to license your code as GPL to protect a specific
> application or a GUI, then please consider dual licensing in a BSD compatible
> way the backend, the statistical backend as far as I'm concerned.
>
>
> Thank you for your attention.
>
> Josef
>
>
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